Oh, for sure!
As usual, I was just talking about descriptive concepts, thus abstaining from adding my personal point of viewā¦
But that saidā¦
Heck yeah, I agree with you! 
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Iāll leave a thought here:
You know what Stephen Hawking once said? He said his inability to take notes and write things down forced him to understand and remember the entirety of a theory entirely in his mind. He himself said, had he not been disabled, he would not have had success he had as an astrophysicist.
If he had been cured before birth, he would not have contributed as much to science.
Just something to shine a light on the value of diversity, even when it seems a bad thing.
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I get that, and like I said, I believe that most of those people are happy to live and love their life. And thatās just great - no sarcasm inside that sentence, just to get that clear!
But I still think itās cruel to force people to live that way just because they could develop some coping strategies that way - that reminds me of saying, hey, rape is fine, because some women grow stronger afterwards (not saying youād say something like that, of course!)
Perish the thought! You know me 
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Yep 
I just didnāt want to stomp on your toes unintentionally - If I do so, I want to do it intentionally! 
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I donāt think diversity is a bad thing! not at all!
I actually fight for a world where we should be able to choose what and how we want to lead our lives! Even if it means that I might choose to impair myself!
But even on this exampleā¦
Stephen Hawking did suffer. a lot!
And for every 1 person under his circumstances that achieved so much, countless others experience only suffering!
alsoā¦
Nowā¦ Iām sorry for sounding harsh, but that sentence is just as valid as claiming that if I had 2 wheels I would have been a bicycle.
Iām sorry, but I absolutely despise "What If"s as arguments.
Canāt agree more!
Actually, the reason why Stephen Hawking would attribute his success to his conditionā¦ That is a coping mechanism, right there!
Also, in the interest of clarityā¦
I am radically against the concept of Eugenics. Purely because that would end up culling diversity as a side effect.
But I am in favour of facilitating parents to edit out the genetic defects on their babies. And if spontaneously we end up getting rid of bad genes permanently, now thatās just a big bonus!
Look, Stephen Hawking said this. Iām just repeating it. Surely he mustāve known a thing or two about what disability allowed or didnāt allow him to achieve better than you or me
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Hmmā¦ I kinda doubt that - he always was in this condition, and he just canāt know what he would have achieved otherwise.
Thatās the same reason why I say I just donāt know how happy heavily mentally disabled people are - I canāt know, I canāt see the world through their eyes.
Hawking was a brilliant brain, and he would have been a brilliant brain without his condition as well.
Thatās a great idea, but it might end up the other way round - I know of two deaf people who decided to check the genes of their āpossibleā children (yep, a designer-baby-story) and consciously decided to take a deaf one. This is cruel beyond imagination, I think - just because the parents were fucking selfish.
Totally agree to you here
No he wasnāt. He knew what being valid is. He ended up in a wheelchair as a student of astrophysics, in his twenties, and he stopped writing a few years after that. So he did live on both sides of the fence, and he got to live his condition as a true loss all the way.
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Oh, sorry if I meant that as a critique to you!
Not my intent!
Was clear to me that it was a quote!
My point there was that no matter how smart he was, that sentence is still a very textbook example of Coping mechanism: You attribute your greatest achievements to your greatest burdens, therefore you can experience the burden as a boon, and this whole dynamic helps easen it.
When I criticise What-Ifs, itās because we are comparing something concrete with somethingā¦ which could have been anything! So there isnāt any actual comparison.
Itās literally saying something like āOption A is Great! because Option B could have been bad, if the hipothetical scenario I have in my mind played out accordinglyā
In this example, I am sure that there is a strong influence of his unique perspective in his work.
Yet being in his condition did not turn him into a genious. he was a genious regardless.
So maybe his work would have been different, but I doubt it would have been less impressive.
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Ah hell, I should have looked that up beforeā¦
But still, he canāt know what kind of achievements he would have made, had he not ended up in a wheelchair. I doubt it would be much different, but itās just impossible to find that outā¦
I love coping strategies
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Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stickā¦ I give up you guys. If you start doubting the opinion of Stephen Hawking on disability, what next? Maybe Buzz Aldrin didnāt go to the moon?
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I do agree with you here. A lot.
Yetā¦
Even if I disagree with their views, I would still defend their right to have them.
Mostly because as soon as you cull one individualās freedom, you risk every one elseās
I picked Gingers as an example because it is a gene which is actually being spontaneously culled from our pool! 
Iām not doubting his opinion on disability.
As I said before, I am sure his work was heaviliy influenced by his condition.
but my point is this one:
Saying that he did great things because he was in a wheel chair is not the same thing as saying that āif he was not in a wheelchair he would not have done great thingsā.
Hell - Iām not doubting his opinion, I just think you canāt know how your live would have developed if something went some other way than it actually did!
Like, I live a very happy life. My parents got divorced when I was 13.
I could say, I wouldnāt be able toā¦ whatever, say, solve conflicts the way I do if they didnāt divorce.
Thatās just stupid because I cannot know! Because they did. And I have no idea what would have changed in my life if they didnātā¦
I think thatās a hard one - if you defend the parentās freedom, you defend their freedom to do harm to their childā¦ and I think thatās the point where individual freedom can and maybe should be limited 
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I agree with your logic there.
and you are right, that is a really tough one (which would take me ages to try to expand my logic in a post)
So Iāll try to sintethyze it a lot here (so I hope it still makes sense):
- someoneās freedom should be limited when it starts to limit the freedom of others
- Anything you do to a Pregnancy is an action inflicted upon an individual (the mother). But it ultimately will also affect another individual. And thatās where that case becomes so blurry
- I have no means of actually knowing objectively how much that kid will suffer because of it. I can base myself on numbers and state it has a greater chance of sufferingā¦ but I have no solid bases. All I have at this particular point in time are probabilities and fears.
- I cannot limit someoneās freedom based in fears.
- I know that if I start to dictate who could have children and who could not, and then to state how that kid should beā¦ I am opening the doors to causing more damage to a lot more people than just that one kid.
So ultimately, I reach the point where:
- if they do that, there is a chance a kid will suffer, but also a small chance the kid wonāt suffer, especially because itāll grow up in a well adjusted environment.
- But if someone forbids them from doing that, then I am sure Itāll be causing immediate harm to the parents. And then thereās also a chance Iāll cause more harm to countless otherās who will then have a precedent to have their freedom culled.
given that dillema, I would rather act in favour of freedom.
Hope that supersimplification makes sense!
And I would love to be proven wrong as well!
That is a particularly nasty Ethical scenario!
The future is now, my friends. Sadly, the future is now.
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oneā¦ you got me chuckling, @ODaily ā¦
Then I clicked on your pictureā¦ And realised itās a fish! 
I was absolutely sure it was a blue bunny wearing a red bandana! >.<
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It does. And I have to use my brain a lot more now than I planned to do, given that Iām not too far of heading to bed 
But, very good points that had me thinkingā¦
Agree.
Agree as well. I think the mother has the ultimate right to decide either for or against the child (that is, decide for an abortion). If she decides for the child, she should take great care to do as little harm as possible (so, no smoking, no drinking, no drugs and such). And maybe even decide not to āmakeā the child deaf, dunnoā¦ strange case, somehowā¦
Agree, and I think maybe, because the child will be born deaf, it wonāt suffer at all - because, like was discussed before, you canāt miss what you never had. But since Iām one of those persons who wants to implant a magnet to gain another sense, I think that having fewer senses might be a disadvantage of some kind.
Totally agree - and still, this happens far too oftenā¦ for example, all laws regulating bodymods are based mostly on the fear of other people
Thatās true. But non-regulated pregnancies, like we have them, lead to suffering as well - unwanted children, parents who canāt care for their children, all that stuff. Not saying that regulating pregnancies is a good thing, but either of that will lead to some kind of sufferingā¦
I totally understand that, given your argumentation.
I can follow that intellectually.
It still feels wrong
Yeah, some of the avatars are kinda trippy when you really look close. @Moonman0922ās is the worst for me. I really thought it was a green and white version of Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes. Then when you look close you realize itās a formal crest.
Try as I might, I canāt see the blue bunny though, just betta splendens.
edit.
Fitting derail for the derail thread. That last comment has me wanting blue bunny ice cream.
Is it pancake time in New Zealand yet?
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